Gates OK'd Medal of Honor for Peralta

Memoir: Complaint through Pentagon inspector general changed course

The book entitled: &quot;Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary of War,&quot; by former Defense Secretary Robert Gates is seen in Washington, Wednesday, Jan. 8, 2014. The White House is bristling over former Defense Secretary Robert Gates&apos; new memoir accusing President Barack Obama of showing too little enthusiasm for the U.S. war mission in Afghanistan and sharply criticizing Vice President Joe Biden&apos;s foreign policy instincts. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

The book entitled: "Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary of War," by former Defense Secretary Robert Gates is seen in Washington, Wednesday, Jan. 8, 2014. The White House is bristling over former Defense Secretary Robert Gates' new memoir accusing President Barack Obama of showing too little enthusiasm for the U.S. war mission in Afghanistan and sharply criticizing Vice President Joe Biden's foreign policy instincts. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

While the nation is buzzing about criticism of President Barack Obama in the upcoming memoir of former Defense Secretary Robert Gates, a two-page section of the book has rocked the group still pushing for a posthumous Medal of Honor for San Diego Marine Sgt. Rafael Peralta.

In “Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War,” Gates reveals that he originally approved the nation’s highest combat medal for the Marine killed during house-to-house fighting in Fallujah in November 2004. Then a complaint delivered through the Pentagon Inspector General’s office derailed the award.

“That’s pretty significant, in that the evidence there previously had been that compelling,” said Joe Kasper, spokesman for Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Alpine, who has kept up a spirited fight to upgrade the young Marine’s medal. Peralta was awarded a Navy Cross in September 2008.

“Up until this point, the prevailing opinion was that Gates’ decision might very well be firm and final. This book reveals that that is absolutely not the case,” Kasper said.

In the book, to be released Tuesday, Gates writes that he was aware of dissenting views from the “medical forensic community” and the defense undersecretary for personnel and readiness, at that time economist David Chu.

But Gates writes that he approved the medal anyway, after talking to several senior leaders in Peralta’s chain of command.

“I was satisfied that Sergeant Peralta met all the criteria and deserved the Medal of Honor,” he writes.

After Gates signed the recommendation to the president, however, he was informed that the inspector general had received a complaint alleging that Peralta would have been too wounded to take the actions credited with saving two other Marines that day.

Peralta, a 25-year-old graduate of Morse High School, was shot in the head as the Marines were clearing rooms in a house. He fell face forward. As enemy fighters left, they threw a grenade into the room.

Seven eyewitness accounts credit Peralta with scooping the grenade under his body to save his buddies nearby. But the eyewitnesses differed in some peripheral details. For example, several said Peralta grabbed the grenade with his right hand; some said it was his left.

“The inspector general intended to carry out an investigation unless I took some action to deal with the complaint,” Gates writes.

He tried to “clear the air quietly” by assembling a special panel to study the allegation. That group — which included a neurosurgeon, two forensic pathologists, a Medal of Honor recipient and a retired commanding general from the Iraq War — concluded unanimously that that the bullet probably killed Peralta instantly and made it unlikely he consciously smothered the grenade. They also said the grenade detonated near his left knee, not under his torso, and that he would have survived the blast if he had not already been shot.

“I had no choice but to withdraw my approval,” Gates writes, though he expresses regret.

“Perhaps someday, should additional evidence and analysis come to light, the criteria for the award will be deemed to have been met, and Sergeant Peralta will receive the Medal of Honor,” the former secretary concluded in a chapter titled “One Damn Thing After Another.”